The Beer

I was standing in Papa Gino’s tonight, waiting for one of the gentlemen I was with to finish up his conversation so we could leave, when an attractive blonde twenty-something caught my attention.

“Are you in line, sir?” she asked innocently. I told her I was not and she moved along, ordering her pizza or sub or whatever while it slowly dawned on me what had just happened: she called me SIR. There are people that I encounter in my life that I call SIR. These people are generally much older than I am. Ergo, she thinks I am old.

There’s no way of knowing with any certainty, but I’d like to think that at that very moment, my mood went from, “Well, this has been a shitty couple of days,” to, “Well, this has been a shitty couple of days. I need beer.”

The funny thing about this is that I don’t even really like beer all that much, and drinking it at home, where I inevitably make it through one or two before tiring of the taste and moving on to more exotic beverages like milk and flavored water, is highly unlikely to result in me becoming drunk enough to forget the reasons I bought it in the first place. (That might be the longest sentence I’ve ever composed.) Maybe it’s just that sometimes, just BUYING beer is enough to make it feel as though I’m addressing the problem in an unhealthy manner, which is really all that matters.

So after a couple stops on the way home (including one AT home, to use the facilities; the store is only a mile away so it’s worth the additional comfort), I rolled into Stop & Shop and headed for the beer aisle. (How much beer do I not drink? I’ve been going to this store for at least three years. I think I had been in the beer aisle once.)

After some consideration of the more exotic offerings – oooooh, Natural Ice? It must be organic! – I decided not to buy anything that sounded interesting for fear it wouldn’t quite hit the spot and leave me out somewhere between eight and ten dollars. This was an alcohol purchase for the sake of feeling better about my problems, not for making me remember the consistent tenuousness of my financial situation. With that in mind, I ventured down to the far end of the aisle, to the domestic beers, where I could take the first steps toward proud ownership of a six-pack of Bud Light bottles.

The whole time I was doing this I was wondering if I would get carded at the register. Blondie thought I was old enough to be her grandpa, apparently, so it seemed like a good possibility. I considered it while picking up a bag of Fritos Scoops (can you believe the price of a bag of chips these days? $3.99 – and they were on sale?! Outrageous!), and considered it some more while picking up a container of Helluva Good Ranch dip.

As I approached the register, I decided to leave it to the cashier’s discretion. Pulling my debit card from my wallet and my Stop & Shop card from my pocket, I laid myself at her mercy. The following is a rough transcript of the conversation that ensued:

CASHIER: [scanning the beer] Can I just see your ID please?

ME: You flatter me. Somebody called me “sir” earlier and it made me feel old.

CASHIER: You were born the year I graduated college. You’ve got a lot of years left.

ME: God willing.

CASHIER: Don’t worry, it only gets worse.

ME: Oh, I know. And the days I remember that are the days I buy beer.

CASHIER: I go with the wine.

So I left the store, content in the knowledge that I’m not the only one being sucked down by the soulless vortex called life.

Sorry, I don’t know what that means. I’m on number two and starting to feel a little lightheaded. Almost time to switch to water.